My animal stories

While people in this household can peacefully nap, I, on the other hand cannot shut my eyes because every creek I hear I'm thinking about the damn chipmunk. I figure this would be the perfect time to do my exercise video but I can't.....I have to do it in the living room where the TV is and imagine I'm doing the ab routine on the floor and the chipmunk jumps on my face - me=stroke!

Ok so instead I figure I'll share some of my many stand-offs with animals...can you see where the inspiration for this one came right?

• When I used to live in DC, a pigeon flew into my bedroom through the window....feathers...everywhere...me...screaming! I had to call a friend of mine who owned a store nearby...I was so desperate he CLOSED his store, came and got the pigeon out.

• There was this poor little kitten lurking outside my basement of an apartment when I first moved to IL...so I gave it a home and named her BeBe. Well, Bebe earned her cat-food by killing 2 mice and leaving them DEAD right in the middle of the living room floor...pretty. Again, I called one of my trusty friends to come ALL the way from the other side of town to retrieve the dead mouse and throw it away while I hid out in the laundry room.
  

• In college, our dorm was SO hot and humid in the summertime, that I moved my bed right under the windows so I could feel the breeze while I slept my classes away. My brilliant roommate then decides to put HER half-eaten lunch RIGHT ON THE WINDOWSILL. So after some brain-washing exams, I come in to find a damn ANTHILL on my bed. Sure enough I made her clean everything.

• Childhood memory : I'm strolling happily along through the forest with my brother picking wild strawberries when BOOM, I walk straight into the biggest spider web on this planet. It literally covered my whole body...poor spider spent his/her entire lifetime building it and it caught ME! My dumb brother is laughing his ass off while I did several jumping flips, crying hysterically, and making Jackie Chan proud with my Kung Fu!

Finally...this one was the most painful one. Three years ago, my then new boss says, "Jojo, oh my goodness this dog had puppies...come see the puppies, come see!" Do you see where this is going? I was kind of scared as I've always been afraid of dogs since I was little. Well, shit, she was my boss and a big DOG LOVER, so I couldn't be like eh...no THANKS! So there I go walking towards this super protective mother of cute puppies.

What the hell am I going to do to these puppies you know? I'm just looking....suddenly the damn "bi$%h",remember that's actually what it is called - she jumps at my face, and bites it! Yes I got bitten in the face by a dog...thank god it didn't bite down all the way through. I have a little scar right under my bottom lip and her top canine pierced through the bridge of my nose and BROKE IT! yea........................The underneath of both of my eyes was black and blue, my damn nose was soooooo bruised and swollen...i...hate....that...dog!

I do not wish animals harm...just STAY AWAY FROM ME! (especially bugs)

Share your stories in the comments!

Mommy's Big Pineapple

On this exact day a year ago, I was attending my graduation and had to share my day of celebration with all the other mothers in the audience. At some point, whoever was speaking at the time, I think our President, asked ALL the mothers to stand up to celebrate our day. I looked back to the thousands of people there and there were so many moms standing up proudly, including my mommy too.

Then.....there was me. I was six months pregnant and technically a mom, I guess. But I didn't know what to do....should I stand or keep quiet. I mean not many knew I was preggers anyway and not many students were standing up. Do I become a real mom when the baby is born or am I automatically a mom by being pregnant? By the time this whole thought process was through, all the mothers were sitting down while I almost got up. Yea, I regretted it.

This weekend has been like a national holiday at our household. I slept until 11am yesterday - scandalous! Came downstairs to a beautiful breakfast and absolutely gorgeous flowers, heart-shaped balloon, my favorite - CAKE!, and pineapple....hahahaha I love pineapple. Yes, the HUB is reading beside and is urging me to mention that it was the BIGGEST pineapple of the bunch. OK!

You guys know how I feel about sushi, he took me to our favorite Japanese place, which was just FULL of prom couples, who the hell knew that it was prom weekend too. Our little baby girl was just hanging out, taking in all the excitement - but I did make sure to thank her for making me a mommy. I'm supposed to go pick out my present today and ooooh am I excited! Happy Mother's Day!

p.s. Ladies (and lads), it's still not too late to send in your letters for To My Younger Self. I'm not very anal on deadlines so it's ALL GOOD...please participate.

My mother

Last night, I was working on my letter (for the To My Younger Self event....you should be too? :) And I was writing a section on my mother and how I should have loved her more when I was younger, of course I did but there were times I gave her lots of stress and disrespect - I was very rebellious. As I finished writing this...I thought to myself, "Geez, Jojo..it's going to be Mother's Day and you're only dedicating couple of sentences to your MOTHER?" No...she deserves a whole post, I thought. So here it is, first off let me include a picture of my mother and me, when I was a baby:
My mother's a beautiful woman, always has been....me, eh! as you can clearly see. If you ask anyone about my mom's character...they will tell you that she spent her whole life dedicating all of herself to her family...especially her children. From the generation she came from, and from our Asian culture, the women are the main nurturers. She came from a seven sibling family and when their parents died when she was a teenager, she nurtured all of her younger siblings and then the three of us when we were born.

My mother is a kind woman who cries very easily...she's ambitious, intelligent, and loving. She has her sharp-tongued moments..lol and her way of disciplining me was for me to learn from my own mistakes. She gently guided me and not only mothered, but befriended me in the closest way possible. Geez...she is the most patient person I've ever known, something which I didn't inherit, sadly, but becoming a mother myself has been a crash-course through patience itself.

When I see the wrinkles on her face and her hair graying...she forgets and complains about her back hurting...when I outgrew and she became shorter...it saddens me and I can't imagine my life without her in it. There were my stupid moments when I fought her over everything, when I would yell, kicking and screaming...I so regret. Mothers really DO want the best for you and every "nagging" comment is for your own good. She tells me that her granddaughter (LC) will get her revenge finally now that I'm in the same position. LOL!

My parents are separated now, and when both my brothers left to go back to our country, my mother and I only had each other in the vast land of America. Those were such difficult times, but we lived through it and proved that women are born with inherent perseverance. She is silent, strong, and brave...all things I hope to learn. I love you, mommy!

There is one other person I would like to mention in this post. And this is another mother I've gained in my life. My mother-in-law. She may not have given birth to me, but she's become my second mother nonetheless. She called me everyday when I was pregnant, and she couldn't love my little girl any less than me. She gave birth to my wonderful husband (though I swear to GOD there are moments when I wanna...you know?), she taught him to respect women, to be a good father, and THANK GOD, be helpful around the house. Thanks, mom!

And to the all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day!

La Saboteurs: Part 2

The second part in this series of posts deals on how family affects your eating behavior. Just like these geese we follow each other's diet in a straight line.

Let me tell you about my family first. I grew up with two older brothers with healthy appetites. By healthy I mean big with room for seconds. We were fighting over the 100th last piece of candy at times. The other thing is back in the day, the concept of waste was a sin - a waste of money, which was a big deal. We had to clean our plates so that we didn't throw our parents' hard work in the garbage.

Then we moved to the States, normal food that we had in Mongolia that was here wasn't interesting anymore. All the pizzas, burgers, fries, deep-fried appetizers were calling to us! In big Sam's size portions. This new stuff tingled on our taste buds and our faces couldn't be stuffed more.

I remember we lived right next to a CVS and every dollar I could find was spent on candy laid out smartly underneath the registers. I couldn't believe my eyes that there were thousands of varieties of sugary goodies out there. I instantly became a sugar-a-holic.

Well enough said, it was too easy to get hooked on junk so much so that it became an everyday thing. Normal food wasn't greasy enough and sweet enough. It silently preys on you and makes itself a regular that over the last decade I couldn't shake it off. Granted we were all younger and our metabolism was speedy...we never noticed the pounds, or cared to. But now, self-image anxiety has set in, and you sit around wondering what the hell happened, and why you can't just say NO to the Twix's twin bar.

As you see, the family diet that we had put my mentality in this state: second servings, cleaning the plate of a big portion, parents not denying junk food (they too felt sorry for us because we had been denied of goodies all our young lives). Food was an important part of our lives, it brought us together from our busy individual lives and sat us down to hang out with the grub.

Oh yes, I almost forgot something and I can't believe I did. My father always worked late and when he came home, dinner was waiting for him along with us. We all would sit with him and eat more (we'd eaten earlier)...I suppose for the social aspect, we were all desperate to spend time with him because he worked really hard. So now, it seems like we're always eating too late in the evening, like 9pm. Well that's a big NO NO! No one should eat this close to sleeping time. It just messes you up and your digestion too.

Our lack of different vegetables also had us hesitant to try new ones when we moved here. Our palette just wasn't used to all of this.

So as you can see, all this has had a really big effect on me up to today. Knowledge is empowerment. When you know the problem, the fixing becomes an easier approach. Think about your own childhood, how you ate at home and what you ate. Did you ever fight your siblings for the last morsel of food even though you didn't want it? You just did it because it was the LAST piece? Think if that has created a wall between your eating behavior now and your new diet for weight loss. You'll get over it.

The lessons I've learned here are:

1. Eat smaller, controlled portions
2. Don't get seconds because you think you're still hungry, you're probably full already - your brain just doesn't know it yet
3. Go easy on the fried stuff and sugar, they're killers...literally
4. Eat more and different kinds of veggies
5. Don't eat after dinner which should be around 6, maybe only a light snack

Now I must apply these to my fight against fat and towards the slimmer healthier version of myself. Well there you go!

What's the secret?

The other day my brother and I were discussing The Secret. He asked me if I had seen the DVD to which I replied, "No, but I did buy the book and immediately returned it (thinking I can't believe this is a bestseller)." Basically you can totally ignore my opinion if you'd like, since I didn't read the book or see the DVD, but in my mind, I know exactly what the hell the secret is and I don't think people should pay to find it out. I guess the claim they make is that through some psychedelic mind power, you can make anything happen in your life that you want. Like I said, I may be wrong.

So, we started discussing about the various things that people and we want in our lives and what the secret really is to getting them. Basically what the Secret, gazillion other self-help gurus, and possibly common sense tell ya are the following:

• Positive Thinking - it does take a while to get out of the slump of negativity and pessimism to get your feet on the path towards your goals, but thinking positively gives you a head start
• Visualization - you have to visualize yourself attaining your goal as if it has already happened; psychological studies prove that those who can, get better results
• Action - obviously you can't think yourself over to a million bucks and flat abs, you must work hard and diligently...this one is a no-brainer

Of course, I have many goals and plans for the future, but the most immediate one is to be a good mommy to my offspring and to be happy doing it. The one thing about becoming a mother and going through such a big life change is (at least in my opinion) that you devote yourself so fully to this little munchkin and your family that your individual identity becomes a little lost, a little too modified. You guys know my big focus right now is on the physical - to become the old me by losing the weight I gained during the pregnancy. Achieving this goal will make me happy and the "happy me", in turn, will be a better mom and wife.

It is not vanity per se, it's a way for me to regain my old identity by being inside a more familiar body. It IS very hard to motivate and inspire yourself to go ahead and just do it, so I positively think that "this is attainable and quite feasible" and visualize by putting out my old, favorite, and smaller size clothes for me to see myself in them soon; putting up inspirational pictures and words around my workout area and my mirror. I think, these are the places where you most judge yourself: you look at the mirror and start demeaning your current image, or you look at your treadmill and despise it.

In the spirit of this post, I (unbelievably) am going to share one of my own, yes dorky, motivational pictures and post-its which I taped on my bedroom mirror to remind myself of the change that is yet to take place.If there's anything you want to change in your life, put up things around your house that will help you visualize your dreams, inspire and motivate you to think positively, and go ahead - take that first proactive step today!

L.O.V.E.

So yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I don't know about you, but I had a fantastic dinner with my sweetie at the local japanese place after going to like 3 restaurants with 2 hour waits who foolishly don't take reservations. Anyway, like everyone knows (I hope) love, of course, is the most important thing in life and it got me thinking how I would like my LOVE to be remembered. We have a little baby girl and for me that is someone who will continue to keep my memory alive long after I'm gone. I know a family of three sisters who speak SO fondly of their parents and the way they describe their parents' relationship is "My father adored my mother". Isn't that nice? Not that he loved her but that he ADORED her. It has such a deeper meaning...I would really like my children to describe us that way. Being adored is not something to be taken granted for, obviously you must be lovable and love that person in return to get that..hehe But you know, that, I realize, is the best way to have lived and loved. I hope I'm making sense here...it's so important to live your life happily and for your children to have such a childhood to recall. With so many people living single and divorced lives, it really is sad to see that all around us. We have to strive to make our world full of love...and it all starts with the family unit. Ok, that's my sappy tale of the day. The question is how would you like to be remembered?